


Duet

by Smilla



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 2010, Episode: Exile on Main Street, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-22
Updated: 2010-10-22
Packaged: 2017-10-12 19:58:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/128488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smilla/pseuds/Smilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The notes are the same, he reflects, but they lack the easy tempo: it's not a duet anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Duet

**Author's Note:**

> [Originally posted [here](http://smilla02.livejournal.com/215874.html).]

He knows the rhythm: how his speech is supposed to sound, the right curl of tongue that makes the words sound accurate, _his_. He practices talking with witnesses and random people: the newsman and the waitress and the barman that serves him cold beer and asks no questions. He knows how to ask a sleepy motel doorkeeper for a single room, though sometimes he stumbles on that, says _two queens_ and has to shake his head and paint an rueful look on his face, bewildered that he forgot when he can't think about anything else. He knows how to say thanks to the room cleaner, good mornings and goodbyes. Thanks for your time. We'll do all we can to find your son, your wife, daughter, husband. Brother. He practices in front of the mirror, his own face lit by the overhead lamp and the shadows his eyebrows cast are long and rounded and reach all the way to his cheekbones.

He practices with the cousins, about hunts and monsters and guns and knives; he plans and trains and hunts, laughs, eats, drinks, fucks and hunts, and trades jokes and smiles, though he never feel like smiling. It's easier when he's with them, much more used to that world than he even thought possible. It's easier, but still out of sync. The notes are the same, he reflects, but they lack the easy tempo: it's not a duet anymore.

With Samuel he does better. Samuel's blood, he keeps thinking, he's the same blood and flesh of his own flesh and blood, whatever that means with death between them and the asynchrony of their respective time. Samuel is flesh that once decayed and that's possibly what makes him all the more familiar. He can spot the similarities, though, preserved or inherited – he gets confused these days. A brush of the hand against his lips, the easy sprawls and confidence of his talk, his walk; hands tight around the handle of a rifle, a gun, a knife, like they've been made for that particular job, for their specific tools of the trade. Samuel is not a substitute, but he's as close as he can get, because with Samuel he can almost kid himself that he's found the right song again in the pale shadow of shared genetics.

After a while, he gets comfortable in the disharmonic reign of his new life. He learns the steps of this different dance made of too many people that brush at his elbows, satisfied pats on the back that have the wrong weight, and sleepless nights spent listening to the inhales and the exhales of a room crowded with sleepy sighs and the alien turns and tosses coming from the cots. When he's on the road, it's his own beating heart that he hears, head on the slim pillow.

He gets used to it, and the days pass and then months 'till he doesn't even have to make any efforts; the words comes easier and the smiles are less strained, and he thinks it'll be all right, he'll be all right; he can live with this new song. His own voice, though, remains foreign to his ears.

And then there's Dean and he says _Sammy_ , like hundreds times before, and Sam keeps hearing it, again and again – a never ending echo – and it's so loud his head hurts and his ears pop, pressure too high, and suddenly, like someone turned the volume all the way up, each noise and sound is clear, free from whatever muffler he was listening through. His own voice is perfectly right, _his_ , no careful modulation required, when he answers, _hey, Dean._

\--


End file.
